Who Is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?

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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an influential 19th century British novelist who was best known for her novel Frankenstein. Published in 1818 and again in 1831, Frankenstein portrays the life of a man named Victor Frankenstein whose life becomes intertwined with that of his own monstrous creation, leading to his own demise. Some readers may regard this novel as a mere thriller due to a presence of a supernatural being (and indeed! Mary Shelley wanted to concoct a story that “would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awake thrilling horror” (Frankenstein xxvii)). However, this novel has another purpose: to capture what is “the truth of the elementary principles of human nature” (Frankenstein xxxiii). In other words, Frankenstein…show more content…
Ancient Greeks heavily debated on these limits imposed on science due to prevailing social facts; they mulled over opposing morals and ethics, as well as what was the right thing to do in such a vast mysterious world. They also debated on how the natural world came to be. Some philosophers, like pantheist Xenophanes, came to treasure nature like it is God. They believed that all things and people remain secondary to God-made nature. Since people are nature-made, whatever people create as art cannot be superior to what is created by nature, since anything that is created by nature is presumably perfect. As a result, whatever man does to improve upon nature taints it…show more content…
These people were part of an intellectual movement that originated during the late 18th century called Romanticism. Unlike the Enlightenment philosophers who valued the universal and logical, Romantics held deeply in their hearts emphasis on the individual, imagination, and the wonderful. Consequently, they found it difficult to relate to Rationalists’ faith in scientific reasoning. Additionally, Romantics saw themselves as one with nature, stating that nature is an extension of the human personality, contrary to the Enlightenment philosophers’ belief that humans were detached from nature. For that reason, Romantics rejected Empiricists’ belief in detached human experimentation. To further add salt to the wound, Romantics claimed that the Enlightenment philosophers’ scientific approaches to investigating nature were dangerous to humanity’s relationship to God. Romanticism firmly perceived nature to be the dwelling place of God; quite simply put, God and the natural universe that the Romantics believed to be in were one and the same. They believed that, like the pantheists in Ancient Greece, everything was created by the divine forces of God/nature, and for that reason, those who attempt to control this force of creation were seen by Romantics as those who carelessly try to usurp the powers of the
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